


The Most Dangerous Game

by Viridian5



Series: Pike and Benny Stash [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (movie)
Genre: Drama, First Crush, First Love, First Meetings, High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-06-27
Updated: 1999-06-27
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:29:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At first sight.</p><p>(A Pike & Benny joint.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Dangerous Game

**Author's Note:**

> Te said she liked to think about the stalking I mentioned in "Plush Things You Hold," so I had to present it. That makes this the see-and-stalk story.
> 
> Thanks to Laura and Te for suggestions.

Benny looked down at the _thing_ on his plate and tried to figure out what it was. It could be pizza, a hamburger, or chicken patty on a bun. All three came out of the school kitchen as the same brown, greasy, soggy lump. He made a face at the lunch lady, who only gave him a disgusted look and waved her hand to tell him to move along. He only bought the school lunch once in a while to remind him why he was better off using the candy machines.

Those few times when he did get the lunch, he usually stared down at his tray or at the lunch staff, giving them the evil eye, the whole time he stood in line. Today, some part of him said, Look. Look there. Being the type who believed in listening to his instincts, he followed it. He shook unruly black hair out of his eyes, turned his head, and--

In a movie, the music would have come on strong: sickly sweet or triumphant. Everything would have gone into slow-mo and focused on that one person, that guy standing by himself near the mural. The guy would look right at him, would _know_ and their eyes would meet. The world would just stop.

The world and people in it kept on moving. Only Benny had stopped. The low, dull roar of hundreds of teenagers talking at once provided the only soundtrack. The guy never looked up or noticed him to acknowledge the momentous thing that had just happened.

//Only, only, only. Except...//

Thank God. It was shattering enough as it was. With all that too, it might have killed Benny.

And he would have died without having any idea what had hit him.

He had never felt anything quite like this before. It felt like something pulled on his mind like string. Like he sailed on a high so good and so overwhelming that it couldn't help but be terrifying too. Like he'd been empty, and something had just filled him. But it was also stronger than all of those things. Crazy.

He didn't want to be filled; he'd worked hard to be empty. You could do anything when you just didn't care, so people respected you. They couldn't take anything or anyone you loved away if you loved nothing and no one. This rush of emotion had the pain of circulation returning to the arm you'd slept on all night.

Why this guy? Maybe you could call him attractive if you were into small, delicate looking, and too thin. He was probably older than he looked, had to be, because he looked too damned young to be in high school. He wore the same kind of clothes Benny did-- army/navy wear and Salvation Army castoffs--but they looked authentically shabby on him.

But he walked and scanned the room now with a wariness and crackling energy that Benny could feel even standing so far away. The soul inside that body didn't match the delicacy of the exterior. That self called to Benny. I'm here. Come get me. You _know_ me.

The guy broke stride with a little jump that suggested that the basketball team's star player had just tried and failed to trip him. //So it's like that, is it?// Benny wanted to rip the bastard's head off. Normal reaction. He also wanted to hold the guy, keep him safe, and wash the wariness from his face, unleashing the sweetness that lurked around dark eyes....

Really abnormal reaction.

Ben had never felt anything like this before, had never even noticed the lack. Girls didn't do it for him, and guys didn't either. He had some experience with both; curious groping in the first case, and business transactions in the second. Blowjobs in parked cars with older men for mad money, and didn't it make him smile to think of how Dad had always said his mouth would get him into trouble....

But it was always just physical and didn't mean anything. This did somehow, and after only a moment of looking.

Apparently, love at first sight did exist. It also seemed to have one hell of a sense of humor.

The guy perched on the end of one of the benches, then pushed a little to force some room for himself. Alone, obviously very much alone. He opened a small bag of popcorn and started to eat slowly. It seemed to be the only food he had. Lunch money should have been enough for two bags of junk....

Sunlight streaming through the dirty windows struck gold in his brown hair and seemed to create a kind of halo. Benny almost snickered at himself. //What closet have I been hiding this romantic side in?// The guy stiffened a little, then started to look up. He knew he was being watched. Would their eyes finally meet? Benny wasn't sure if he wanted them to. Up, up....

Something shoved Benny hard into the metal railing and over his tray. "Move, you asshole! You're holding up the line!" a voice said from behind.

Through the flare of pain in his ribs and back, Benny recognized the voice as belonging to one of the basketball bastards, a fucking b-boy. He'd fix him later. Benny's mouth twisted. "Yes, sir," he said, picked up his tray, and moved on.

Benny glanced back to see that the guy had withdrawn back into paying complete attention to his lunch. Now Benny would never know if that dreaded and wanted eye contact would have happened.

He felt the jock walking a little bit behind him. //I'm going to _get_ you for that, you....// But you had to be careful getting revenge on the jocks. The team couldn't play worth shit, but the school gave them carte blanche, with their word taken over anyone else's, their right to bully unchallenged. You had to be subtle, wait for the right moment when you could do it without anyone taking you down.

Benny could think long term when he wanted to. This jock would get his later. The guy... well, that looked like it would be even longer term. He'd need recon first, like you would whenever you went into unknown territory.

No matter what the after-school specials wanted people to believe, you couldn't just walk up and say, "Let's be friends." No one would trust that as being for real, and this guy in particular would see an outstretched hand as the next best thing to a striking cobra. Benny knew that about him already. You had to know the right tack, had to know how to coax him to you so naturally he never realized it wasn't his own idea....

//I'll show you that you can trust. Me.//

Besides, the thought of just going over and talking struck Benny with an unaccustomed terror. Usually he didn't give a damn what people thought. //What if he laughed in my face? What if he said no? What if he thought I was a freak? I mean a bad freak. "Hi. I saw you across the room and knew we had to be friends. Why are you running away?"

//If this is what love feels like, how the hell do people survive it?//

Benny sat down near his usual group. While he couldn't exactly say he had friends here, he hung out now and then with the stoners for loaner drugs. Any one of them provided the stuff for a friend in need. He did for them too to keep the largesse coming.

"Thought you stroked out on line, man. Looked like you had a seizure," Gecko said then finger-combed his bleached blond hair out of his reddened eyes.

//Damn. But see how well you do when you realize the missing piece of yourself, the important one you didn't know was missing, is standing across the room from you.// "Do you know anything about that guy over there?" Benny pointed his head in the correct direction.

"Nothing."

"What about--"

The others all shook their heads. Some of them looked a bit dizzy afterwards. Seemed like they'd already hit the yard.

//Well, I figured that would be pointless anyway.// This crowd only paid attention to drug-bearing people in their immediate group. //I have sources to find, a certain someone to follow. Finding out his fucking _name_ would be a good first step. Yeah, I can do this. I have to do this.//

Benny bit into the soggy lump and tasted what might have once been tomato sauce. It was supposed to be pizza, then. He sighed. //Maybe I can walk over and commend him on being smart enough to hit the machines? Nah. Stupid!//

He hated feeling like this. Weak. Dependent on someone else's opinion of him. //Easy. I make him want me like I want him. Then we'll be even.// He lost himself in thoughts of what that soft looking skin might taste like as he swiped potato chips from Gecko's lunch. //But what if I can't? Oh God. But we can be friends anyway. Sure.// Benny spent the next 20 minutes getting as many surreptitious glances at his target as possible.

Benny noticed that the b-boys had gotten up to dump their trays. They seemed to do everything together, which made him wonder about their sex lives.... But the asshole who had pushed him would be walking on his side of the row. Revenge came calling sooner than expected. This would be dangerously close, but he thought he could nail it. He just needed to time it perfectly.

Benny waited, waited... then shot his foot out and back. //Put your left foot in, put your left foot out.// It connected only briefly with the jock's ankle, but it did the trick. He tripped and hit the floor hard in a sprawl of limbs, while the tray flipped in the air, spewing trash, before clanging to a halt next to him. The room burst into applause that abruptly and uncomfortably trailed off as the students realized who had fallen and what reach he had.

He got up and looked all around, but Benny looked exactly as uncomfortable as everyone else in the room, no more, no less. It was a gift of his. Fortunately, the jock didn't seem to remember the shoving incident earlier, or maybe he'd never gotten a good look at his victim's front.

"I think someone tripped me!"

His teammates chuckled. "Suuuuuure. Give it up, Darryl."

"But--"

"You're making it worse, man." Still smirking at his public humiliation, they led him away.

Benny glanced back to look at his certain someone and enjoyed the slight smile that curved those lips. //When I get you, I'm going to make you smile more often. Bet on it.

//What am I thinking? Shit, I'm ruined for life!//

Benny followed his target at a distance to every class for the rest of his day. It made him late to his own, but that was nothing new. When the school day ended, Benny followed the guy away to see where he lived. Instead, he stopped inside an auto body shop and didn't come out. Benny found a wall he could lean against across the street and lit up. As hours passed with no reappearance, he let himself daydream. At least not all of them featured his certain someone. //Yet?//

Finally it got dark, and eventually a light went on in the window of the second story of the building. Someone stood in silhouette and seemed to be searching the night. //Do you feel me out here?// The light went out, and he didn't reappear. Benny now knew his job and home, and it would be seriously creepy if he stayed out here all night. Grinning ruefully, he went home.

Benny followed him to classes for the next three days and soon saw what he took. Like everyone else, his certain someone's Tuesday and Thursday had the same schedule, and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday did. It reached the point where Benny knew exactly the way he walked and gestured, knew exactly how the ever-present dogtags would sway in any movement.

The guy never had company and never caught anyone's notice. He was a ghost, and he seemed to either prefer it that way or have come to terms with it. Asking other students about him turned out to be useless, because he didn't mix and barely spoke to anyone else.

Somehow, Benny fell harder and harder for him every day. It was insane. He gave off some kind of aura of personality that snared Benny. Charisma? It made Benny want to approach, want to hold and protect him, but fear kept him waiting for the right moment.

On the second day a group of the b-boys caught the guy in a deserted length of hallway. The seven of them circled him like vultures. "You want to pass, you have to pay the toll, cocksucker."

Benny heard his voice for the first time. It was soft and gravelly. "Fuck you." He flinched as a fist struck the locker next to him.

"Wrong answer. What should we make you do for us?"

He straightened. "What? You want me to suck your cock? What does that say about _you_, you stupid fucker?"

Did he think he could anger them enough to make them lose control and get in their own way while beating him? Maybe he was the type who couldn't help running his mouth. Or maybe he was suicidal. Whatever, Benny couldn't help admiring his kamikaze flair.

The lead bully moved so quickly Benny hadn't even known he'd struck until the guy doubled over. "You calling _me_ a fag?"

The guy straightened again. "Why? Is it true? And my mother hit harder, you pussy."

This was bad. It almost had the air of ritual, something they did on a regular basis, but.... It could get very ugly. To his surprise, Benny felt the sudden need to get involved, to help defend. //A lightning strike from behind? Damn, he's making me insane!// He couldn't change the odds enough against seven people. They'd both get their asses kicked.

He thought of the fire alarm. He'd been saving that one for a rainy day, but.... The guy, his stance suggesting a cornered animal, started to swing to punch. This couldn't go any further. Fire alarm it was.

Benny turned--jazzed at the thought of glass to be broken and blessed chaos to be started, a chance to watch the sheep panic and run--but, to his disappointment, a teacher came out and broke the fight up first. Probably wouldn't report the incident, but at least he put a stop to it. The jocks promised Pike they'd get him next time.

And, like that, from the last people he'd expect, Benny finally got a name for him.

Even more surprising, the teacher stayed to talk with Pike as he got his breath back, and he answered respectfully with a sudden brightness that suggested actual interest. He hadn't seemed like the honor roll type. Benny had to stay too far back to hear what they talked about, but he still enjoyed the low mumble of that voice caressing his skin from a distance. Enjoyed saying the new name to himself under his breath over and over. Pike. //You're one sad individual, Ben.//

Even better, he had his information sources at last. Ask Pike's _teachers_ about him. That thought had no jolt of fear attached. At least this whatever-the-hell-it-was he felt for Pike hadn't turned him completely soft and scared.

At 3:05 he wandered into the auto shop. The older grimy guy in there alone, putting tools away, had to be the teacher. Benny hoped. He cleared his throat and asked, "You teach the auto shop?"

"No, I just like the smell of oil. Yeah. What do you want?"

"I'm a friend of Pike's, and--"

Those seemed to be the magic words. The man's face took on such an expression of relief that Benny had to fight giggles down. The words "Pike _does_ have friends? Thank God," might as well have been tattooed on his forehead. But he still seemed wary.

"--and I'm concerned about him. He's been quieter and moodier lately. He said once that this was his favorite class and you're his favorite teacher. How's he been doing in class?"

It took some more convincing, a lot of fast talk and half-truths, but eventually the teacher started to confide. It seemed like he'd wanted to, that he hoped someone would come in who cared about Pike that he could talk to.

Pike was a fast learner, a dream student. Benny had to kick his brain out of the gutter when the teacher said he was good with his hands. But....

"Does he ever say anything about his home life to you?" the teacher asked.

"No, sir." A little respect, real or not, always greased the wheels. Besides, he almost liked this guy. "Why?"

"We're not encouraged to touch students--lawsuits and all--but there was one class where he fixed a complicated problem so quickly that I couldn't help trying to pat him on the back. He flinched so hard he shook me off. He's very twitchy and doesn't like to be touched at all."

"I don't know anything about it."

"You tell him that if he ever wants to talk, I'm here. When I tell him, he doesn't listen. Maybe he will to you."

"I'll give it a try. And thanks. You won't tell him I asked, right? He'd be embarrassed."

A background of abuse would explain a lot. Benny had _known_ Pike was too twitchy for a bunch of bullying jocks to be wholly responsible.

By the third day Pike started to look more nervous, suggesting that he _knew_ he was being followed. He glanced back now and then. Benny started to think that maybe the best way to calm him into trust didn't involve stalking him until his natural paranoia flared into terror. Time to give up on following and move to Phase 2, casing the rest of the teachers.

At least until that perfect moment came.

After a lot of coaxing, Pike's history and English teachers provided more of the picture, speaking of an underachiever who could be a brilliant student if he would apply himself. The English teacher thought he could earn scholarships if he tried harder and saw his vo-tech concentration as a criminal shame, even if it did help him in his after-school job. Both believed that he was having problems at home that distracted him.

Benny walked out of the consultation with the history teacher at 3:20 and left the building. A soft "Hey" stopped him. Pike was leaning against the wall, staring him down. Benny's heart skipped and constricted in terror. And affection.

//You have it so damned bad.//

"Why have you been following me? Why are you asking about me?" But it didn't sound accusing. Pike just sounded curious.

Even if something in him still suggested a feral creature ready to fight or run at any second.

At the moment, Benny knew exactly how that felt. //I love you.// Definitely couldn't let that one out. Benny had thought he'd have more time to put together the all-important first words, because he would decide when and how to approach. That had obviously gone to hell.

That Pike had discovered and identified him only made him want Pike even more.

Benny took everything he knew of Pike and said, "I need someone to watch my back."

"Yeah, I saw Darryl shove you in the lunchroom a few days ago. Brutal."

//He did notice me then!// Benny shoved down the glee and kept his face blank. //Yeah, he saw me get knocked around. But he's a bright boy; maybe he guessed that I was the one who tripped Darryl down. He'll hear what I'm not saying too.// "I thought you'd be a good candidate, but I like to know someone before I make any commitments." Benny smiled inwardly as Pike nodded at the words. "Maybe... you'd want to have someone watch your back too?"

Slight smile. Pike looked amused. "So it would be an exchange of backs?"

//Please?// "Could be."

Brown eyes //So that's what color they are// looked inward for a brief moment before returning their pinpoint focus on Benny. "Maybe."

"You could smoke some weed while you think it over. I got some of the really good stuff from Gecko."

Despite Pike's bored, jaded look, something in his stance became more open, receptive. Wait, his expression had changed a bit around his mouth. Benny realized that it had relaxed a little. It changed the whole look of his face somehow.

//He does have a sweet face when he's not feeling so suspicious.//

"If you're providing..."

"Yep."

"Hell, why not?"

//Got him. Thank God.//

### End


End file.
